_SPECIAL TEXT: "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if any man hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me. To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne."_--ST. JOHN. _NOTES._ 1. _Pastoral Epistles:_ "The Pastoral Epistles are three in number--viz., I Timothy, II Timothy, and Titus. They are so called because they bear upon pastoral duties. From the earliest times they have been ascribed to Paul, and received as of canonical authority by the Church. They all belong to the same period, and they were all written towards the close of the Apostle's life. If the apostle had been released from imprisonment for a time and then imprisoned a second time, the epistles belong to the interval between his release from his first imprisonment in Rome and his death--an interval during which he had paid a brief visit to the churches he had founded in the east." (Bagster Bible Helps, p. 76.) 2. _Timothy--Paul's Disciple:_ "Timothy resided at Lystra (Acts xvi: 1). He was the son of a Greek father and a Jewish mother named Eunice, from whom, as also from his grandmother, Lois, he had received a devout training in the Old Testament (II Tim. i: 5; iii: 14, 15). Paul calls him his 'true son in the faith,' whence it is inferred that he had received the gospel through Paul's preaching during his first sojourn in Lystra. At all events, on the apostle's second visit to Lystra, he found the mother and son already converted, although the father continued an unbeliever. As Timothy was well reported of by the brethren, Paul circumcised him and took him as one of his chosen companions (Acts xix: 22). The connection continued intimate and unbroken till the close of the apostle's career." (Bible Treasury, p. 146.) 3. _I Timothy:_ "The time and place of writing cannot be certainly fixed. The former must have been between the years 64 and 67 A. D. But the occasion and purport of the epistle are very plain. Heretical teachers had arisen at Ephesus, where Timothy was stationed, and the Apostle gives directions which the young man required, and which have a permanent value for all youthful ministers. No systematic order of thought, such as is found in Romans and Ephesians, meets us here, but a free outpouring of the apostle's heart. The letter has been justly compared to pearls of varied size and color loosely strung on one thread." (Bible Treasury, p. 146.)